


The Essence of Heroism

by slowcookedvig



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Praise Beebo, Sacrifice, chili - Freeform, crossovers are the absolute worst, fic as meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 12:46:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16995264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowcookedvig/pseuds/slowcookedvig
Summary: Oliver knows exactly what he needs to do in order to save the universe.He is wrong.





	The Essence of Heroism

This is what it has all led to, Oliver thought. He had been preparing for this for a dozen years - from the moment that his father had shot himself in the head.

He should have died in place of his father, of Shado, of young Akio Yamashiro. In place of Tommy.

He had been ready to give up his life to protect his city from Slade's vengeance. To protect Thea, and then his city, from Ra's al Ghul. To protect the world from Damien Darhk, and to protect his friends and family from Adrian Chase.

He had traded his life as a free, married man to the FBI, so that his friends could have a chance to live their own lives.

The essence of heroism is sacrifice, to die so that that others could live. Oliver had known that for a long time.

He looked at the Monitor. "You say balance must be maintained?" he said. "Then take me, instead of Barry and Kara."

The Monitor frowned at him. "I said that the balance must be maintained," he said. "You could not replace them."

Oliver's shoulders sagged. He had known, in his heart, that he could never be good enough for this.

"Their heroism has little emotional depth," the Monitor continued. "Supergirl lives in a world of simplistic metaphors that fail to fully capture the social and political context of the universe. And the Flash has been praised and rewarded with happiness, rather than forced to face the consequences of his actions."

Oliver looked at him. Maybe he actually could punch his way out of this one, if sacrificing himself failed...?

"I told you that you must know yourself," the Monitor said. "But you do not."

"I'm the darkness," Oliver repeated.

"You are more complicated than that," the Monitor replied. "Your answer is incomplete."

"Fine," Oliver said. "Here are the details, if you need them. I was a prisoner who trusted the wrong people. I was an ineffective mayor. I couldn't protect my wife and child, and I'm not good at communicating my plans with the people I love the most. And before that... I was so bad at being a CEO that I lost my family's company. I was a murderer. And I got my friends and allies hurt or killed. All the time." He took a breath. "And I've failed, over and over, to truly save my city."

"To know oneself, one must understand the good as well as the bad," the Monitor said. "What do you do well, Oliver Queen?"

Oliver shook his head. "Not much," he confessed. "I can make arrows, and hit anything with them. I can do handstand push-ups." And the salmon ladder, he thought. But that reminded him of Felicity's face during her fifth orgasm, and he wasn't willing to share that memory. Not even with a god. "I... I can cook."

"You... cook." The Monitor looked at him carefully.

"Chicken cordon bleu," Oliver said. "Omelets. Chili."

"Chili..." the Monitor mused. "Truly great cooking requires balance. Your friends do not understand this. They only understand the sweet - the excessive sweet bordering on saccharine. But you... when you cook, do you add the bitterness of loss, the sourness of guilt? The saltiness of criticism, both earned and unfair?"

Oliver shrugged. "My chili is mostly just spicy," he said. "People say it's too hot."

"I do not believe that your chili could ever be _too hot_ ," the Monitor said. "I accept your trade."

Oliver shook his head. "Wait. What?"

"You will make chili," the Monitor said, "in return for your friends' lives."

"It takes a long time to cook..." Oliver warned him. "And the world needs saving now."

"Time has slowed," the Monitor said. He waved his hand, and a fully stocked kitchen appeared. Complete with a cutting board, and knives, and piles of meat and vegetables. And a slow cooker.

"Fine," Oliver said, looking down at the apron that he was suddenly wearing. "Just don't destroy the world while you're waiting."

***

Hours later, it was done.

The Monitor dipped a spoon into his bowl, calmly watching Oliver's reaction. Then he lifted the spoon to his mouth and took one taste.

There was a flash of blue smoke, and suddenly, a man-sized Beebo doll stood there, inhaling the entire bowl of chili.

"Beebo lo... lo... looooves this!!"

The giant blue.... thing... lumbered towards Oliver, arms open. Oliver glanced around, looking for some kind of weapon, and realized that his clothes had suddenly disappeared. The knives were gone, too. There was nothing between him and a horrific death-by-cuddling but a thin, chili-stained apron. 

The door - the door to Oliver's world, the door that he had nearly forgotten - opened, and Ava Sharpe stepped through.

"Oh, my god," she said, looking at him. "I did NOT need to see that."

Oliver looked down at himself, frowning. "Sorry about the mess...?"

"That's not what I mean. You're just not my type. Sorry." She gathered her composure. "Mr. Queen, I'm afraid the world needs you right now."

Beebo was still on the move.

"Mr. Queen," Ava said. "Quickly. Gary - Gary from the Time Bureau - grabbed the Book of Destiny while the two Supermen were busy fighting over who got to catch all the women who were falling from the sky. He - Gary, I mean - is currently dressed like King George from Hamilton... well, and more importantly, he's re-writing all of our destinies." She cracked open one eye to look at him. "That probably explains the nudity."

Oliver nodded slowly. "What do you need me to do?"

Ava held out an arrow. "Don't ask where I got this. Just shoot that damn book, before Gary can do any more damage." 

***

Barry had gone in search of food, leaving Sara and Oliver at the bar. Sara turned to Oliver and lifted an eyebrow at him.

"You heard about Beebo," Oliver said.

Sara shrugged. "Ava tells me things," she said. "Keeps the relationship healthy."

Oliver nodded.

"So you saved the world by cooking chili," she said. "Maybe you should work on doing more of that, and less sacrificing yourself."

"The essence of heroism..." Oliver started.

"The essence of heroism is bullshit," Sara said. "You should know that by now." She drained her glass. "Oh, and you need to spend more time being honest with Felicity," she continued. "She'll keep being brilliant and badass, whether you like it or not, so you might as well like it." 

Oliver shrugged.

Sara rolled her eyes at him. "Ollie, healthy relationships beat the hell out of self-sacrifice. Trust someone who has learned the hard way." She looked towards the bar door. "Ava's waiting for me. But trust me. And trust yourself. And trust Felicity. And next time we visit, you need to make that chili for everyone."

**Author's Note:**

> The Arrowverse - or Beeboverse - would be a better place if the Legends writers would just stage a giant coup.
> 
> Note added 12/20/18: I want to say a something about my discomfort with Supergirl's political metaphors.
> 
> The current season of Supergirl features a violent, xenophobic group with a lot of political popularity. It wants to be a mirror held to the current political situation in the US. But the metaphor misses the whole history of white supremacists in the US, and all the current overlaps between attacks on immigrants, and black people, and white women, and transgender folks, and Moslems and Jewish folks and... and... and... And it misses the ways in which the attacks are magnified and more frequent for anyone with intersecting identities that are not white, male, het, cis-gendered, able-bodied.
> 
> A more realistic backstory might involve a white male history professor who only got into Yale (but not Princeton and Harvard), and has tenure at a state university (but not an Ivy), and blames his failures on the one woman in his cohort who got a job, rather than on his own mediocre research record. He would have been radicalized by reading Bloom's Closing of the American Mind, and would have ranted about the dangers of political correctness for his undergraduate conservative paper at Stanford or Dartmouth in the early 90s. He would have been already encouraging his conservative students by complaining about snowflakes and trigger warnings, while making rape jokes and assuming that his students of color needed to take remedial writing classes (regardless of their skills). His administration would have protected him, because legislators are concerned about universities being 'too liberal', and his fellow faculty would have protected him because of 'academic freedom'.
> 
> And then he would have seen the extra-planetary students as a target against which he could rally broader public support, another opportunity to claim that he is the real victim while becoming even more powerful.
> 
> Supergirl's metaphors are part of the same narrative that the NY Times uses when it keeps looking for angry white people to interview and understand, or NPR uses when it talks about a poll showing that people don't support "political correctness." It misses the point. It provides (unintentional?) support for the very people it is trying to criticize.
> 
> And Supergirl gets criticized by being too political... but I would argue that it's not political enough. Or brave enough. Or insightful enough. Or... something.
> 
> (Also, the whole thing about taking Native American history and turning it into an anti-immigrant screed is just horrifying.)


End file.
